Flags with writing: when words go on the banner

Letters are the great exception on flags. They are hard to print cleanly, they have to read correctly in mirror image on the back, and they are almost impossible to make out from a distance. Even so, a few countries carry real words on their banner, and the selection is more varied than you would expect. When writing does appear, it is usually a motto or a creed, never mere decoration.

Saudi Arabia and the creed

The flag of Saudi Arabia shows the Islamic creed in white Thuluth script, with a horizontal sword beneath it, all on a green field. Because the writing is held to be sacred, the flag follows two special rules: it is sewn from two layers so that the text runs correctly from right to left on both sides, and it is never flown at half-mast. Out of respect for the text, the flag is also kept off goods such as footballs and clothing. Arabic calligraphy appears on other flags too: Iraq carries an inscription in green Kufic script, and on Iran's flag an inscription in stylised Kufic script is repeated 22 times along the edges of the green and the red band.

Brazil's Ordem e Progresso

Across the blue starry globe of the Brazilian flag runs a white band reading Ordem e Progresso, meaning Order and Progress. The phrase traces back to the philosopher Auguste Comte. The starry sky below is no random pattern: it shows the sky over Rio de Janeiro on the morning of 15 November 1889, the day Brazil became a republic. The 27 stars stand for the states and the capital district, arranged like the night sky of that very night.

Mottoes in Latin and Spanish

Many flags keep their words inside the coat of arms. San Marino simply places the word Libertas, freedom, on a scroll beneath three towers. Belize carries the Latin motto Sub Umbra Floreo, under the shade I flourish, and is at the same time the only national flag to depict people. Andorra bears Virtus Unita Fortior, united strength is stronger, and the Dominican Republic shows the words Dios, Patria, Libertad above an open Bible. San Marino's three towers stand for the three peaks of Monte Titano, and the Bible in the arms of the Dominican Republic is shown open, a detail no other national flag shares.

• Saudi Arabia: the creed in white Thuluth script above a sword.
• Brazil: Ordem e Progresso on a band across the starry globe.
• San Marino: the word Libertas on a scroll in the coat of arms.
• Belize: the motto Sub Umbra Floreo below the coat of arms.
• Andorra: Virtus Unita Fortior between the fields of the arms.
• Dominican Republic: Dios, Patria, Libertad above an open Bible.

Names and dates in the arms

It is not only mottoes that reach the flag, but names and dates as well. Guatemala carries the date of its independence on a scroll, and several Central American countries set their state name around the coat of arms. Such inscriptions are tiny and barely legible from a distance, yet they are officially part of the flag and turn up on any accurate rendering of it.

Why so few flags carry writing

Writing ties a flag to one language and one reading direction, and that is a drawback the moment it goes small or mirror-reversed. A pattern of stripes and stars has no such worry. That is exactly why words are rare, and why the few examples stand out all the more: see an inscription and you have already narrowed the field to almost a single country.

In CountryRush you pick up markers like these almost in passing, from script to coat of arms. The Daily Trip brings fresh flags every day, the ones with text and the many without.